Choice
by Ven'aranar Angel
Summary: He never asked to be created. He never chose to exist. He didn't even choose how to feel. It wasn't his choice. It was no-one's. Except, perhaps, fate. Ah...cruel, unfair fate.


_A.N. ~ This is a short one-shot for Dark Link. I'm not a LoZ player, and I know very little about him and that world. I don't know much about Link (though I do know he doesn't actually talk during the game, just makes grunts and battle cries or screams when he's dying), so sorry if he's out of character. That aside, I hope you enjoy :)_

 _P.S. ~ I apologize to those of you waiting on 'Sea of Faces'. The re-write is taking a while and it probably won't be ready for at least a year. I'm pretty busy with school and other things and have other projects I want to work on, so work on that is slow. I'll try to post one-shots and short stories I happen to write when I happen to write one I think is worth your time._

* * *

It was strange. He never asked to be created. He never chose to exist. He didn't even choose how to feel. It wasn't his choice. It was no-one's. Except, perhaps, Fate's. Ah...cruel, unfair Fate.

His movements were constantly dictated, his drive already set. His enemy was called such only because it was to be so. Did Link ever do anything to him? No, not at first. Not until he set their rivalry into motion. Not until he helplessly watched himself grow into the monster he now was.

But wasn't 'monster' too kind a word? Monsters lurk in darkness, haunt dreams, frighten children, yes. But he didn't feel like only that. He killed innocents, took away their homes, took away their friends. Stole everything from them. No, he wasn't a monster.

He was a demon.

Demons are meant to be feared, hated... Yes... Demon was right... It felt like a more full, solid title. Not as shallow as 'monster'. Monsters, he'd met, and they all had fallen to their knees in reverence and fright before him. Beasts such as them did not act like that amongst their own.

"I'm sorry." Speaking of monsters. "If you'd only chosen to stop sooner, this wouldn't have happened."

Chosen. Choice. Such ludicrous words. Concepts, more like. Vague phantoms that could cover one's eyes and make him blind - make him believe they were within his control. Choice. Choice didn't exist. Not for someone like him.

"Not...mine," he wheezed, coughing weakly. A pair of azure eyes slid down to meet his ruby spheres, staring with only sternness and disappointment. Eyes that would not ever understand, because they could not see the deception around them.

"What's not yours?" His lips curled upwards in a sneer, breaking apart as another coughing fit jerked his body until it went completely limp once more.

 _Drip...drip..._

 _'My...blood... My blood is everywhere. On the ground, on myself, on my cloths, on his sword...'_

The black-stained grass slid dangerously beneath his trembling fingers, threatening him with the possibility of falling as he dragged his body up, leaning it against the dead tree that had assisted in his downfall.

The warmth the pool of his blood had offered on the ground faded away, embracing the surrounding cold as though both were long-lost family. Trickling streams of the liquid seeped from his chest, traveling out through the bridge of his damaged clothing and cascading down the waterfall of muddied and torn fabric. Heat pulsated from the wound in sync with his heart - a duet of death.

Death. How strange, that after seeing it claim so, so many, he'd be taken by it. Oh, but not quickly. No, certainly not quickly. The blackness of that ethereal creature faded and grew at the edges of his fuzzy vision, fighting a winning battle as his heart pushed with increasingly weaker shoves back at the darkness that would consume him.

The sudden blur of his head lolling forward helped in no way, either; only giving him a better view of his battle-marked body and the blood-stained ground. The coughing was too weak, by then, bringing no relief at all to his blood-slicked throat.

 _Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump..._

Was that...his heart? It sounded so frail, though. Like a sparrow with a broken wing trying to fly. That wasn't his heart. His heart was a proud eagle, beating its wings strongly in a set rhythm of life. That wasn't his heart...

 _Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump..._

He...couldn't feel it anymore. That reassuring thump that always promised survival wasn't there. Why wasn't it there?! It was always there! Even before he had opened his eyes for the first time, it was there...

Hm. Turns out even his heart had abandoned him. Fate had taken it away, just as it did with his choice. The only difference was that it had taken longer to tear it out of his body.

What wasn't his? Everything. Life, free will...nothing was his. Not even sight, because only blackness remained. The darkness no longer was staved off by his heartbeat. What wasn't his?

"Choice..."


End file.
